If Scarlett Johansson could have snapped her fingers and erased at least one movie from the 2019 Best Picture nominees to clear the way for Avengers: Endgame, it sounds like she would have done it in a heartbeat. “How did this film not get nominated for an Oscar?” the actor asked while “referring to the best-picture category” in a recent interview with Vanity Fair. (Yes, one that took place in May 2025.) “It was an impossible movie that should not have worked, that really works as a film—and also, it’s one of the most successful films of all time,” she continued.
Endgame did get one nod that year for visual effects, but missed out on the biggest category of the night to the surprise of probably very few people besides Johansson. Just take a look at the list of nominees: Parasite took home the statue that night, among a group that also included Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood, 1917, Little Women, Joker, Ford V Ferrari, The Irishman, and Jojo Rabbit and Marriage Story, two films Johansson was not only in but received a nomination for. Yes, you read that right—Johansson was double-nominated that year. And sure, there are a few films there that aren’t quite the same caliber, but that’s still an incredibly strong pool overall. Even if something was swapped out, Endgame would be an odd choice to fill the spot, especially in a year that also gave us films like Uncut Gems and Portrait Of A Lady On Fire. To date, Black Panther is still the only MCU film to land a nod in the Best Picture category.
Of course, Endgame held special significance for Johansson, as it killed off Black Widow, the character she’d been playing for a decade at that point. It’s just a shame the Golden Globes‘ “Achievement In Making A Shitload Of Money At The Box Office” award hadn’t been introduced by then.
